Relevant international organizations and their constructive policies

Relevant international organizations and their constructive policies. The international community has long recognized that efforts to combat organized and serious crime require cooperation and consistency across national borders. Organized crime generates a vast amount of criminal property and uses various techniques to move the proceeds around the world.

Relevant international organizations and their constructive policies

In response to this global challenge, a range of international bodies have contributed to the development of laws and standards to combat bribery and corruption. International bodies have been critical in developing globally recognized legal definitions of anti-bribery and corruption and accepted standards of good practice for regulated entities. They are also consistently at the forefront of identifying trends and emerging threats in bribery and corruption and recognizing and documenting the links between money laundering and threats to international peace, stability and economic growth.

Laws criminalizing the handling of criminal property are primarily intended to capitalize on crime by ensuring that the proceeds of crime can be recognised, reported, traced and confiscated. Economies supported by the proceeds of criminal activity are notoriously unstable and pose significant risks to neighboring countries and countries with close economic ties. The impetus for international government action against money laundering also stems from the fear of national or regional economic destabilization due to overexposure to illegally obtained funds.

United Nations (UN)

In the context of the UN’s efforts to prevent and combat corruption and terrorism, the Comprehensive Technical Assistance Work Program to Combat Bribery and Corruption is being developed. This is based on mandates recommended by the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and approved by the UN General Assembly. These mandates, carried out by the UN Terrorism Prevention Branch (TPB) within the Treaty Affairs Division (DTA), include providing technical assistance and advisory services to countries in their fight against corruption and terrorism.

Consequently, the UN’s operational activities are aimed at strengthening the legal regime against corrupt activities. It aims to help Member States in their fight against illegal drugs, crime and terrorism. It was also decided to step up efforts to combat cross-border crime in all its manifestations, to step up efforts to implement the commitment to tackle the global drug problem and to take coordinated action against international terrorism .

G7 and G20

Recognizing that public procurement is highly vulnerable to illegal activities such as corruption, a range of techniques and approaches are needed to prevent this, as recognized in the G20 Principles on Promoting Integrity in Public Procurement and the OECD Principles on Promoting integrity in public procurement, to prevent corruption, especially through:

(a) Publishing contract data for national public procurement throughout the contract cycle in a machine-readable format, in accordance with national laws and regulations and, where possible, the principles of open data standards such as the G8 Open Data Charter and the G20 Anti -Corruption Open Data Principles.

(b) Increasing transparency in the entire public procurement process, being aware of the risk of corruption in infrastructure-related public procurement, both due to the complexity of the process and its scale.

(d) Demonstrating our commitment to tax transparency. We emphasize the key role that can be played by the IMF’s Fiscal Transparency Evaluations and all other equivalent standards.

OECD

The OECD emphasizes that effective law enforcement cooperation requires robust technical capabilities worldwide and that building the capacity of countries vulnerable to corruption is essential in tackling corruption, especially through:

(a) Strengthening anti-bribery and corruption practices and improving audit and accounting processes, integrity reform, anti-money laundering and asset recovery, as well as improving budget formulation, expenditure standards and transparency in the public procurement process.

(b) Promoting technical assistance to support the effective implementation of anti-bribery and corruption practices by all Member States and States of the UN.

(c) Encourage and provide support to other countries to complete public expenditure transparency assessments, such as those of the World Bank and the IMF, and the OECD to identify areas of necessary reform.

(d) Calling on international organizations to prioritize the fight against bribery and corruption in their advice and support to countries, and supporting the capacity building of civil society and journalists to contribute to anti-bribery reform corruption and to expose corruption and bribery.

Financial Action Task Force (FATF)

The most important and influential of the international organizations is the FATF. The FATF is an intergovernmental body whose purpose is to set international standards and develop and promote policies, both at national and international levels, to combat illegal activities, including corruption, money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

The FATF attaches great importance to the fight against corruption: corruption can cause catastrophic damage to economic development, the fight against organized crime, respect for the law and effective governance. The objectives of the FATF are to set global standards and promote the effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures to combat illicit activities and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

Corruption and money laundering are inextricably linked. As with other serious crimes, corruption crimes, such as bribery and theft of public funds, are generally committed with the aim of obtaining private gain. Money laundering is the process of concealing illegal profits derived from criminal activities. By successfully laundering the proceeds of a corruption crime, the illicit profits can be enjoyed without fear of seizure.

The FATF recognizes the link between corruption and money laundering, and also recognizes how AML/CFT measures help combat corruption. This is why corruption issues are taken into account during the FATF mutual evaluation process, which assesses countries’ compliance with FATF recommendations. The FATF assesses how effectively AML and CFT measures are implemented in the organization by taking into account the number of investigations, prosecutions and convictions for money laundering and the amount of property seized due to money laundering or underlying predicate offences, including corruption and bribery (Recommendation 32).

The FATF is considering whether the country can demonstrate that it has a robust framework of measures to prevent and combat corruption through respect for transparency, principles of good governance, high ethical and professional standards, and has established a reasonably efficient legal system to to ensure that judicial decisions are taken properly. enforced. These elements are important because significant weaknesses or deficiencies in these areas could hinder the effective implementation of the FATF recommendations. Corruption is often driven by greed. Countries can remove a primary purpose and incentive for engaging in corrupt activities by depriving perpetrators and others of the benefits of such crimes.

To do this, countries must have effective laws and procedures in place to freeze, seize and confiscate stolen property, the proceeds of corruption and laundered property, while protecting the rights of bona fide third parties. Authorities must have sufficient powers to trace assets, including in cooperation with foreign counterparts. Countries should consider sharing assets confiscated as a result of coordinated law enforcement actions and establishing funds into which confiscated assets can be deposited for law enforcement, healthcare, education, or other appropriate purposes. These requirements facilitate the protection and compensation of victims of corruption and bribery, and the recovery of stolen assets, even if such assets have been hidden abroad.

World Bank

The World Bank became publicly interested in money laundering and corruption relatively late compared to other international agencies and standard setters. It was not until 2000 that the World Bank commissioned a study of model laws and enforcement procedures for addressing insider trading and conflicts of interest – perhaps not as high profile as illegal drugs as a predicate offense, but nevertheless generating criminal proceeds.

Globally, the World Bank works with the IMF, the FATF and FATF-like Regional Bodies (FSRB), the G20 countries, the UNODC, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Conference of States Parties Treaty. United Nations Convention against Corruption.

As part of its Governance/Anti-Corruption agenda, the World Bank’s Financial Market Integrity (FMI) program provides client countries and World Bank staff with tools to increase transparency and ‘behind to deal with the facts’. dirty money.’ Corruption, tax evasion and environmental crime are all crimes for profit, and criminals want to access those profits. FMI introduces instruments that focus on financial flows as an additional tool to combat these crimes and ultimately promote a transparent and inclusive financial system.

Final thoughts

A stable set of norms and rules that govern the behavior of states and other actors in the international system is known as an international organization, also called an international institution or an intergovernmental organization.

Organizations, such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization and NATO, can be established by treaty or as an instrument governed by international law and having its own legal personality. International organizations consist primarily of member states, but other entities, such as other international organizations, can also be part of them. Observer status can also be granted to entities, including states.